Nine Spokanites who protested the June 11 detention of two men who were in the US legally, and allegedly blocked their transport from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on Cataldo Avenue, pleaded not guilty to federal conspiracy charges on July 15.
Agents with the US Marshals Service, some in full tactical gear, arrested the defendants at their homes and on their way to work or school that morning. All will face jury trials after pleading not guilty.
Judge James Goeke released the seven who were only charged with conspiracy to impede or injure officers, which can carry a sentence of six years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.
Two, Mikki Hatfield and Bobbi Silva — both additionally charged with assault on a federal officer, employee, or person assisting a federal officer, according to the federal indictment — were held in the Spokane County Jail. There is no bond for their release, according to the jail roster.
Hatfield is accused of throwing back a smoke canister police shot at protesters on June 11. Silva is accused of blocking the exit from the ICE facility and striking a federal officer from behind, according to the indictment.
The other seven were released on several conditions, including that they don’t break any laws, don’t work for the federal government, appear at all scheduled proceedings and don’t possess guns or drugs, including marijuana.
But defense lawyers Jeffry Finer and Andrea George, representing Jac Archer and Thalia Ramirez respectively, requested that the additional condition that the defendants don’t communicate with each other be relaxed. Finer noted that another defendant, Justice Forral, works for Archer, and they need to communicate about work. Goeke allowed Forral to communicate with Archer about work matters as long as they don’t discuss their legal cases.
George also asked that the ICE officers the defendants are accused of conspiring against, who may testify in the trial, not be allowed to communicate, in case they collude to distort the facts of the cases.
“They have the incentive to collude and match up their testimony,” George said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Cartier-Giroux bristled at this suggestion, saying “ these officers have to work together, and that would further preclude them from doing their duties, which is exactly what these defendants tried to do on June 11.”
She referred to the agents as “victims,” which elicited muted groans from the audience in the packed courtroom on the seventh floor of the Thomas Foley Federal Courthouse.
All nine defendants are accused of conspiracy to impede or assault law enforcement officers. The alleged crime was initiated when former City Council President Ben Stuckart, who was with Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez and Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres — two young asylum seekers who came to the US legally and arrived at the ICE office for scheduled appointments where they were then detained — wrote a message on Facebook asking Spokanites to block their transport to the Tacoma ICE facility, and the defendants responded.
Outside of the arrest of Los Angeles union leader David Huerta, there appear to be no other recent examples of protesters being charged solely with the federal crime of “conspiracy to impede or assault law enforcement officers.” The Spokane arrests represent a significant escalation in the Department of Justice’s crackdown on protesters.
In a separate, local case related to the protests, Forral is also being charged with six counts of unlawful imprisonment, which they pleaded not guilty to.
On Tuesday, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) waited for hours at the apartment where the Marshal’s arrested Mikki Hatfield, an unhoused Spokanite who was housesitting there at the time of the protest. The agents would not allow the residents to enter the apartment until they got a warrant to search Hatfield’s things, which Finer told RANGE was legal. Across the city, at least one other home connected to a protestor was searched by federal agents, according to reporting by The Spokesman Review.
Four of the defendants — Stuckart, Forral, Lang and Ramirez — were arrested by local law enforcement during the June 11 protest. But the other five — Archer, Hatfield, Silva, Bajun Mavalwalla II and Collin Muncey — were not arrested on June 11, which suggests the federal government is expanding the scope of its crackdown on protesters.
Archer told RANGE they saw a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officer at the scene of their arrest, meaning at least four agencies — the US Marshals, FBI, the DEA and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office — were involved in the arrests.
Political leaders, including Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, City Council Member Paul Dillon, former Chair of the Spokane County Democratic Party Carmela Conroy and US Senator Patty Murray condemned the arrests in statements and social media posts.
“ICE’s cruel, inhumane practices thousands of miles from the southern border are tearing apart our communities in [the Fifth Congressional District],” Conroy, who in 2024 ran unsuccessfully against Republican Michael Baumgartner to represent Spokane in the US House of Representatives, wrote on BlueSky. “Arresting immigrants seeking to comply with our laws is unjust & arresting those who protest injustice is an attack on the First Amendment. I stand with those fighting for justice.”
Murray aimed her comments directly at the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration is abusing the force of the law to intimidate Americans exercising their First Amendment rights — whether you are a Democrat or Republican, this is wrong and we all need to speak out against this disturbing perversion of justice,” she said.
